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a week of contrasts....

 This week has been one of  contrasts...
some really beautiful sunsets shared with my husband
in a rented convertible...
Sometimes sadness opens up my heart to see unspeakable beauty..


but so much time this week was also spent fighting the demons in my own head...

demons of obsessive thoughts...
that have seemed to increase in a type of hormonal rage...

thoughts that get snagged on such soul ripping negativity...



 I have always been one of intensity and sensitivity...
but this week the volume to this has been turned up particularly  high...

I have lost my focus and ambition....

for no real reason in particular...
I know a lot of it must be hormones...


 but I also know some of it is reality....

This has been a really long summer in the parenting realm...
probably the least rewarding and toughest I've had

My kids are all three terrific...
and
all three are teenagers....
with their own lives and opinions...
two are in their minds
 ready to fly the nest...
only their financial necessity keeps them bound.

It is a season of mood swings all around ...
myself included...

 I only write this...
to make sense of it in my own head...
to see in in print...
to get it out of the
just swirling around inside...

I have put in so much effort to change...
to not be controlling..
to let go...

to find beauty and joy in the next stage...

I am ready...

but now I think I am ready too soon..
for it isn't yet time for them to actually leave...


I must continue building my mental bridge...

 praying for patience and insight...
a prayer I have journeyed with all of my years of parenting... 

I'm just so tired....

if I could only turn off the thoughts...
of worry,
of what if's,
of letting my feelings get hurt...over and over...

to really learn
 to hold on and let go...

Until then...
I will make it my mission
 to focus on the beauty before me.




Wishing you love and joy
as you find the beauty that is your life


thank you so very much for visiting...
blogging has become my own little life preserver...
t

32 comments:

  1. Thank you for your wonderful honesty. I am very thankful to have found your beautiful blog.
    I am in the same season of life as you are and are trying to prepare myself for the changes ahead. Sometimes it is hard to find the positive side of this time in my life.
    Thank you for the fashion ideas too!! I love your sense of style!

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  2. Thank you so much...it's so good to know I'm not alone on this ride. I agree...sometimes it is so hard to find the positives of this time...all the more need for forging connections with fellow season travelers! I so appreciate your visit and kind words my dear!

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  3. Replies
    1. Thank you so very much Danielle...much love right back to you! Sometimes i feel bad you visiting my blog...just because I feel this now...doesn't mean you will too... But i do know to everything there is a season...I know there will be brighter days ahead...I will take this now...it opens my soul...

      You sharing your soul this past year...has been so healing to mine....

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  4. Oh I hope you can find some peace and some joy amid all of these negative feelings. Your blog is lovely and you design sense is impeccable. It seems that you have given so much of yourself to the kids - as the best parents do - but I hope you can bask a little in the thought that they are how you raised them to be. And be open to this new phase in your life. I can't wait to see where you go next!

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    1. Thank you Jill for your kind comments...usually I have grown into a place where I can appreciate fully where I am...i think for the most part my life is good...but sometimes writing out the negative is very cathartic...and the blessing in the writing...the connecting! Thank you so much for visiting and taking the time to comment! I visited your blog...and as I told you i am enthralled with your creativity and honest writings...makes me think....birds of a feather.....

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    2. Totally agree on the feathers. :)

      I love your honesty too and I do get that writing out the negatives can be very soul-soothing. Just wanted you to feel the support. I love your personal style and your photos are amazing. I find your blog to be a place of peace to visit (you've been in my blog reader for a while now).

      Appreciate the comment on my own blog - it's a work in progress (as is everything) but I am enjoying the growth and learning at this time in my life. :)

      Keep up the great work!

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    3. Thank you again Jill! Thanks so for the mantra reminder...it was so needed!

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  5. Tamera, I found your lovely blog a few weeks ago and spent time swooning over your beautiful creations. Then today I found my way back to be touched by the outpouring of your soul. I am an empty nester, I have been in those painful shoes you are having to put on. Five years ago I could have typed out many of those same thoughts, felt those same fears, and then gone to bed and pulled the covers over my head! I am also "hormonally challenged" and so get where your head is at. Thank you opening up your feelings and letting your readers share in your trials. I think as women we need to lift one another up and celebrate all that makes us special, raging hormones and all! And also to let you know that as you children drift away, soon they drift back to their anchor. Mom's are always the anchor no matter how far the rope must stretch!
    Blessings and comfort to you, Barb

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    1. Barb...your comment moved me to tears...big, bold hot grateful tears! What a gift your comment (all of the comments truly) is to me. Your words are so apt they rise to the level of poetry...especially- "Mom's are always the anchor no matter how far the rope must stretch!" Your words are truly a blessing and a comfort...thank you!

      ps-Absolutely love "hormonally challenged"...oh that is a term I will now so endorse....I'm sure...again and again!

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    2. I'm 48 and my mum is 90 and she is my bedrock, she's the most important person in my life.

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    3. Tabitha...that truly gives me hope.

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  6. Hugs to you, beautiful Tamera. I hope writing about your feelings helps you to feel better. I know it often helps me.
    xoxo, Adrienne

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    1. Thank you so much Adrienne! Yes, writing about it does help so much....then all the love and connecting because of it...fills my soul!

      Adrienne it is your honest writing and savoring what is beautiful...that makes me love not only your blog, but you...your soul shines through with each post my dear!

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  7. Sounds like a tough week. I hope next week gets better. Missed you at the beach!
    xo Jana

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    1. Yes Jana...it was one of those weeks...as Barb would say..."I was (am) hormonally challenged! Remember...last week when we were at the beach...I was all good...with my ducks all in a row! By the time I got back to the car...I got a text the boys were back from camp and needed a ride....long story full of hormones and over sensitivity mixed with teenage self entitlement follows!

      I truly missed you both today...our time at the beach has been a summer high light my dear, dear friend!

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  8. Tamera, you are such a classy and honest woman. I appreciate your truthfulness . Sounds like our children are peers. This is a challenging stage of parenting, which we have little preparation for. From the moment the doctor hands us our precious baby, we know that we need to guide them towards independence. Yet, how do we prepare ourselves to let them go? My oldest left for college 7 years ago and it was the hardest thing I ever did. It was like a scene in a movie. There is a great book called Letting Go: A Parents Guide, and it really helped me understand this stage of life. Maybe it can help you too. You are not alone, many other Moms have been in your position. Fight On! Sarah

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    1. Sarah, thank you so much for visiting and taking the time to comment, it truly means so much to me. My oldest left two years ago for college and is now home for the summer before she leaves to study in Italy September 2nd....and oh how i can relate to you...it truly was also the hardest thing I have ever done. I had no idea at the time how difficult it was going to be...for me. I will definitely search out the book you recommend...I need all the help I can find :) .Thank you again for your kind words...they have touched my heart!

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  9. oh tamera!!! this hurt my heart angel doll...i feel you, i'm so glad you shared with us, such vulnerability is beautiful...what you wrote helps me--
    i have a question, is it that you get hurt by your kids because of their behavior or something in particular?
    I am doing a lot better where my relationship with madelynn is concerned, just even in the last couple of months! Not that I could ever help you, because I look up to you, but if you want to email me, drop me a line dear friend.

    God will see you through it --you'll come out on the other side, stronger, brighter, wiser and free-er.

    xo

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    1. Oh my sweet Gina... hearing from you Always helps me...we always connect! To answer your question...I get hurt mainly because I am an over sensitive...especially this week. I think it is the moving to the side lines (being moved?)...you know when they turn to their significant other with such love and excitement...with their whole heart...a place you used to occupy....

      Their not really wanting to listen...being at a stage that they of course have all the answers...The feeling that whatever I say ...their need to challenge it..to discount it..their bending of truths to suit their present needs,,,them just being teenagers... bent on finding their own independence... in very age appropriate ways... while me being an over sensitive...and hormonally challenged...what a summer mix I tell you!

      .But oh dear friend hearing from you and others...truly an elixir for my mother's soul! I know your words are true...I will come out better on the other side...and you will have helped so much on my journey!

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    2. YOu said it, that is exactly what stings, and burns. when they share those excitements etc.. with others in "place" of us, because like you said, it use to be our place with them! that is exactly what I am going through as you know! I actually just put my foot down in a major way with Madelynn. I had been coughing up the way she was treating me to hormones and growing up and starting to leave the nest....well it got so bad that I felt inferior to her in a room! That is just not like her AT ALL. I never thought she'd be this way, because she is so darn delightful, fun, smart and just ahhhh but we are all human, no matter what--well anyway, I told her that it had to stop. That she needed to figure out a way to make it stop. Whether she spoke with her Pastor, or read a book, or found someone for advice, and I told her it was so beyond disrespectful and that i am still her mother--I told her if it didn't change and change fast she'd see privileges taken away so fast---well that was 2 weeks ago, and she turned it around!!! I'm so thankful!!! We are growing up in different ways, and we aren't the "friends" we use to be, but that's ok, because frankly I don't want to be her friend LOL. I'll wait till she's matured and married, then we can be best friends! ha! For now we are seeming to fit in our roles pretty nicely. But Senior year hasn't even begun yet!

      xoxoxo OH one thing that I am sure you know and do, but it is vital and simple. I don't take things personally. I try to zoom out and remember that this actually has nothing to do with me, but her...

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    3. As always Gina I love hearing from you! I am so glad Madelynn turned it around...for both of you! I have been shocked how much I can be hurt by my children's actions...I thought we were always so close. Now we are sometimes...but it comes more in tiny unexpected moments.

      I LOved how you said that you will wait until she's matured and married to be best friends...such good advice. I know my daughter has matured a lot these last two years at college ...the process is a lot harder than I imagined with all three of them...but I have learned that friends help..enormously...I thank you my dear!

      What great advice not to take it personally..".to zoom out...and remember it has nothing to do with me"...I know that cognitively....but really need to put into practice...maybe I will start leaving myself coded sticky notes all around the house!

      Thank you again Gina for sharing...and for all your great advice...it is comforting yo know..."it isn't just me"... :)

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  10. Tamera,

    I truly feel that you are at a time where you are so ready to work on developing those things we put on the back burner while always putting our children first. This time is like turning our insides out. It's painful and necessary. I don't know everything that's going on in your home of course but as human beings and mothers we are experiencing the same things in many ways. And at the same time our children push off from us leaving us hurt and misunderstood.

    I have found comfort in this poem by Rumi and read it over and over again. I hope you can feel something wonderful from it too.

    ~
    Your grief for what you've lost holds a mirror
    up to where you're bravely working.

    Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
    here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

    Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
    If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
    you would be paralyzed.

    Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expand,
    the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
    as bird wings.



    -Poem by Rumi

    Sending you hugs!

    Joni

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    1. Wow Joni, your soul shines through so clearly in your writings...how perfectly put..."our children push off of us, leaving us hurt and misunderstood". that my dear is not only true, but so very beautiful.
      The things going on here are not really particularly dramatic...in fact I am probably closer and doing better with all three, than I have in the past...it is rather how very hard it is for me to move into this new position. Like I was telling Gina...it is more the daily shifts I witness them all making towards me...age appropriate yes...but painful all the same. That is why what you said about them pushing off...is Exactly it...your words give it such a containable viewpoint...so much more manageable than the swirling madness of thought that has been filling my head. you have given me such a gift of improved clarity!

      This poem is also a gift, with each reading i gain more insight...more hope! For all of this I thank you Joni...your sharing of your soul and insight...priceless! I send you love and gratitude my friend!i

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  11. You look so beautiful and this photographs just light up my life.
    I'm not menopausal yet and have never had children but I'm feeling everything you are, I'm just not sure what the "point" of my life is supposed to be, it feels very empty and I have no idea how to fill it. I feel a bit lost sometimes.

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    1. First Tabitha thank you for the lovely complements. I always so enjoy your visits.

      Secondly, I can so relate to your sentiments...even having children...

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  12. Beautiful pictures. And I sympathize with what you are going through.

    Transitions are hard. It helps to sort through our thoughts, as you are doing here. Reading your biograpy section gave me a pang of recognition -- I've had those exact same feelings. I wish you the best for your journey. Be confident, be brave, even when you don't know what's ahead of you. Things have a way of working out.

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    1. Ally thank you for such encouraging words... I will do my best to abide by them! Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment...it is the connecting of the like minded that is the true beauty of blogging.

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  13. You're in my thoughts and prayers! As a daughter freshly out of the stage of I-know-everything-Mom-knows-nothing I can say first hand that your kids are going to eventually see that all the little conflicts are because you love them more than they can even comprehend. One day they will see that you're just looking out for them and they'll understand what that really means. And I think you're such an amazing mother that the time will come sooner than later because you've raised some great kids! Sending you lots of love!! <3

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  14. Thank you so very much my dear, dear Danielle! Your kind words touch both my heart and my soul...and truly give me hope for the future!

    Sending you much love!

    Enjoy your weekend and the wedding!

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  15. You express your thoughts and feelings with honesty and beauty, mirrored by your photos. I believe that the swirling emotions and the obsessive thoughts are just as important as feelings of peace and serenity. The contrast makes the positive possible, but it's so difficult when it's happening. So painful! Thank you for sharing your experiences as you grow and change.

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  16. Tamera, I'm so glad you shared this. I'm on my second round of teenage girls, and this time I find myself longing for them to fly, despite feeling so lost when the first one left the nest. This time I think it's mutual hormones clashing. A friend described her menopause to me as, "waking up every morning wanting to kill someone." I try to remind myself, these hormones too shall pass.

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